Alumni Spotlight: Q&A with Ceramicist Gary White
Since earning his MFA in 2022, artist Gary White’s work has been exhibited widely both across the country and in his home state of Tennessee. A current Faculty Fellow at the Watkins College of Art at Belmont University, Gary’s interdisciplinary practice conducts a cross-cultural visual investigation that explores folkways, identity, and the experiences of the “southern Other” from a multi-ethnic southern perspective. Although his graduate degree is in Ceramics, his work includes sculpture, textile, and other mediums; Tennessee residents may have seen it recently in Crafting Blackness, an ongoing research project curated by art historian Karlota Contreras-Koterbay that investigates 100 years of Black Craft in Tennessee and has exhibited at majors galleries throughout the state, including UT Downtown Gallery.
We recently caught up with Gary to chat about his upcoming ecologically-focused residency at Tulane University’s A Studio in the Woods in New Orleans, his current practice, and time in the ceramics program at the University of Tennessee.
Tell me about your upcoming six-week residency at A Studio in the Woods. What are you planning to work on?
The project I’ll be working on is called Self and Universe, and I chose to hand dig clay and make ceramic pottery from it. I began working with clay when I was 11 years old with my grandmother. Her grandmother had been a potter, but she made pottery in a native way, a Cherokee way. And so my grandma started me to doing that – I asked her if I could learn, and she taught it to me. But I keep that separate from my main studio practice. I use commercial clay for the main studio work that I do, but that could change with this residency.
What’s your current studio practice like?
I’m actually not working on any ceramics at the moment. I’m working on crankies. The crankie is like a moving panorama, a storytelling mechanism that goes all the way back to ancient Asia. In Asian cultures, they were used with shadow puppetry, but as crankies moved into the Western Hemisphere, they were used by traveling musicians to accompany ballads, which were basically storytelling. My work deals a lot with history and storytelling; it’s very narrative. I’m trying to figure out how to merge crankies and ceramics, because, of course, clay has been used for record keeping forever.
How was your experience as an MFA student at UT?
I look back on those days with a lot of fond memories. My professors did a marvelous job in making sure that I had what I needed to succeed there and helping me to network. I’m still benefiting from my time at UT, from what I’ve learned. I have nothing but wonderful things to say about my time in the program.
How have you developed as an educator and artist since your graduation?
I wouldn’t say that my practice has changed, but it has definitely evolved. I think of it like a house; you lay the foundation and build off of it. As far as teaching goes, I’ve been able to build off the experience I had being a graduate assistant and a TA as well as from pedagogy courses at UT. Going into the classroom, you’re going to have a different set of students every year, so you need to be prepared to keep growing as an educator. I received a really solid foundation at UT that allows me to do that.
What advice would you give to students who are considering an MFA program in ceramics?
This is a time that can alter the course of your life. I would say first that you should go into grad school with an open mind, with the full purpose of bettering yourself as an artist and pushing yourself as an artist. And second, when you’re in the program you should make an effort to build relationships with your professors and colleagues – those relationships can really make or break your graduate experience.
Learn more about Gary White and see more of his work on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gary.white.claygriot.